Welcome to the sixth
issue of One+One
Filmmakers Journal
“To put it in a nutshell: we have to be bold enough to have an idea. A great idea. We have
to convince ourselves that there is nothing ridiculous or criminal about an idea”
Alain Badiou1
“He is sentenced to six years for wanting to make a film. A film he hasn’t even made. Six
years in prison on an idea for a film.”
Rafi Pitts, talking about Jafar Panahi2
Ideas are great and powerful things. A great idea can have far reaching effects. In
December 2010, Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi was imprisoned for 6 years and banned
from making films for the next twenty, simply for having an idea. Panihi certainly isn’t
afraid to defend great ideas in the face of danger (a risk he took in his film The Circle
which challenged Iran’s treatment of women). He stands as one of the great testaments
for filmmakers who aspire to ideas. The charge of “assembly and colluding with the
intention to commit crimes against the country’s national security and propaganda
against the Islamic Republic” is clearly an attempt to suppress ideas and Panihi knows
it. In his final statement before being sentenced he declared:
“You are putting on trial not just me, but Iranian social, humanist and artistic cinema – a
cinema in which there is no absolutely good or absolutely evil person, a cinema that
is not in the service of power or wealth, a cinema that does not condone or condemn
anyone ... a cinema that is inspired by [addressing] social malaise and ultimately reaches
out to humanity.”3
This issue is dedicated to all those who take up the eternal struggle for great ideas,
those who risk death and imprisonment to use cinema for the service of justice and
equality. This issue is dedicated to a cinema that serves neither wealth, nor power; but
a cinema against social malaise, that reaches out to humanity. This issue is dedicated
to the eternal revolution.
To sign the petition against Jafar Panihi’s imprisonment please visit:
http://www.petitiononline.com/FJP2310/petition.html
Bradley Tuck

Published 01.04.11
Cover image: Luke Dacey
Design: Benoit Schmit, www.buenito.com
Image Editor: Melanie Hay
Editors: Daniel Fawcett, James Marcus Tucker, Bradley Tuck
Search Facebook for One+One: Filmmakers Journal or tweet us @OnePlusOneUk
Email: info@filmmakersjournal.co.uk
One+One has been produced collaboratively by a group of Brighton-based filmmakers, with internationally based
con­tributors and writers and is a not-for-profit project. HTML and pdf versions of this journal and back issues are
available at www.filmmakersjournal.co.uk

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One+One

Just a Spoonful of Sugar…
Dialectics of Work and Play in Walt Disney’s
Mary Poppins
Bradley Tuck

Hike! Ugh! Hike! Ugh! Hike! Ugh! Hike!
When other folks have gone to bed
We slave until we’re almost dead
We’re happy-hearted roustabouts
The Roustabout Song in Dumbo

Just whistle while you work
Whistle While you Work in Snow White

We dig dig dig dig dig dig dig in a mine
the whole day through
To dig dig dig dig dig dig dig is what
we like to do
Heigh Ho in Snow White

In every job that must be done
There is an element of fun
You find the fun and snap!
The job’s a game
A Spoonful of Sugar in Mary Poppins

Now, as the ladder of life ‘as been strung
You might think a sweep’s on the bottommost rung
Though I spends me time in the ashes
and smoke
In this ‘ole wide world there’s no ‘appier
bloke
Chim chiminey
Chim chiminey
Chim chim cher-ee!
A sweep is as lucky
As lucky can be

4

Chim chim cher-ee! in Mary Poppins

In Disney’s anti-Nazi propaganda cartoon,
Der Fuehrer’s Face (1943), Donald Duck
wakes up in Nazi Germany where he is
forced to continually salute the fuehrer,
even while he works 48 hours a day on an
assembly line. There is no let up for poor
Donald, work dominates and alienates
him. Overworked Donald is driven crazy;
his world becomes a surreal cacophony
of Nazi iconography. Donald wakes up
to discover that he is in America; he runs
over and embraces the miniature statue
of liberty on his windowsill. Nazi Germany
pushes the protestant work ethic to its extreme. There is no room to whistle while
you work here; work is nothing but a tiring,
alienating experience. The lines “Arbeit
macht frei” or “work will set you free” is
entirely perverse in Nazi Germany. Whatever truth resides in the formula, the Nazi
reality is quite the contrary.
How about over the other side of the
Atlantic? What sort of alternative would
Donald face under the dominance of his
rich Uncle Scrooge? Throughout the early
Disney films the theme of work is continually addressed. Disney films constantly explore the possibility of transforming work
into play. Work must be transformed, as if
by magic, into a game. Pleasure in work
can be found in a host of Disney characters (as exemplified in the quotes above).
Here, work is largely a positive thing; pro-

Filmmakers Journal

Still from Mary Poppins

vided you know how to do it well, it can be
spiffing good fun-diddily-fun fun!
It would be wrong, however, to assume that all Disney films have a single
message: they don’t! If Snow White and
Mary Poppins seem to promote finding
pleasure in work, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice in Fantasia (1940) and The Sword in
the Stone (1963) are exceptions to this
rule. In The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Micky
Mouse attempts to seize the production
process itself, transforming his miserable
alienating servitude into a magical enchanting spectacle, but he fails and must
face the wrath of the sorcerer when he
returns. Maybe Micky had failed to learn
the transformative power of the whistle;
instead he had attempted to harness the
power of magic (as if it were technology)
in order to overcome work itself1. In a par-

allel vain, yet contrary conclusion, Merlin
in The Sword in the Stone uses magic to
overcome work. When Walt is expected
to wash huge amount of dishes, Merlin
sets his magic to work and the plates
leap into the air. “But I am supposed to
do it…” exclaims Walt. “No one will know
the difference son, who cares as long as
the work gets done” says Merlin paving
the way for work free ethics of beatnik
bears (The Jungle Book, 1967) and carefree cats (The Aristocats, 1970). Work
is not so much transformed into play,
but eliminated altogether. If there is not
necessarily one clear message that runs
throughout these films, there is however
a theme: the relationship between work
and play. It is with this revelation that we
should pay a visit to number 17, Cherry
Tree Lane…

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6

Tension and Unrest in
the Banks Household.
It is 1910 and a storm is brewing in the
home of Mr. and Mrs. Banks. Tension and
unrest is bubbling away under the surface
of the Banks family, although they are far
too uptight to notice it. For this bourgeois
family is run in accordance with the principles of “Tradition, discipline and rule”,
they have no time to show how they really
feel. At least that is how Mr. Banks would
like it. Mr. Banks, a banker by trade, believes in banking so much that he wishes
to run his home in the exact same way
(with precision, consistency and as little emotion as possible.) Mrs. Banks is
a defender of woman’s rights and has a
somewhat more relaxed attitude. Yet in
both characters there is a kind of bourgeois solipsism, or in Mary Poppins’
words, an inability to “see past the end
of their nose.” George Banks is the prime
example of this; his consciousness is conditioned almost completely by the ideology of banking and he appears unable to
comprehend any perspective outside his
own. His family is therefore treated in a
formal and emotionless manner. When the
admiral comments on the weather saying,
“Bit chancy, I’d say. The wind’s coming up
and the glass is falling.” Banks simply replies “Good, good, good”. Banks only has
ears for banking and is unable to register
any threat of impending crises outside of
finance. His consciousness is merely directed to the forward march of capital.
Slavoj Žižek seems to encapsulate this
capitalist consciousness.
“All one has to do here is to compare
the reaction to the financial meltdown of
September 2008 with the Copenhagen
conference of 2009: save the planet from
global warming (alternatively: save the

AIDS patients, save those dying for lack
of funds for expensive treatments and operations, save the starving children, and
so on) –all this can wait a little bit, but the
call “Save the banks!” is an unconditional
imperative which demands and receives
immediate action.”2
In Mr. Banks’ outlook, everything else
can wait (even, maybe, if the threat is the
entire destruction of life on earth); all that
matters is the practical, level-headedness
of capital!
Mrs. Banks, however, fairs only a little better. A defender of women’s rights
she may be, but her feminism is also
shortsighted. Keeping ‘The cause’ out
of the sight of Mr. Banks (knowing how
much it infuriates him) she relies upon
female nannies and servants to look
after the children. She is so dedicated
to the cause that she is unable to perceive her own complicity in the subjugation of the women who work for her,
not to mention the children who invariably go unnoticed by both parents. The
limitation to their approach is reflected
in their criteria for nannies. After the
most recent nanny has lost the children
and quit, Mrs. Banks says to Mr. Banks
“I’m sorry, dear, but when I chose Katie Nanna I thought she would be firm
with the children. She looked so solemn
and cross.” George banks replies “Winifred, never confuse efficiency with a liver
complaint” What both parents seem to
have failed to notice is that rather than it
being the case that the nannies have not
been strict enough, instead they have
been too strict, never really getting the
children on their side or thinking on the
children’s level. What is needed it a kind,
tolerant, nanny with a cheery disposition. Enter Mary Poppins.3

Filmmakers Journal

Still from Mary Poppins

Mary Poppins
(or How to Tidy the Nursery)
Mary Poppins, practically perfect in everyway, descends from the heavens to
preach the message of work as play. She
becomes a nanny for the Banks family
and is introduced to Jane and Michael
Banks (the children). She sets to work getting the children to tidy the nursery. This
is not a mere task, but a lesson. Here,
Mary Poppins teaches the child how to
transform work into a game. It is a strikingly different work ethic to the stern formalities of their prudent father. For Mary
Poppins “a spoonful of sugar helps the
medicine go down.” One should learn to
enjoy work, to transform it into fun via the
power of imagination. Of course, it is hard
here not to think of Lars Von Trier’s Dancer
in the Dark in which Selma, a Czech immigrant in America, is rapidly going blind
and working as many hours a day as she
can to pay for an operation for her son as
the blindness is hereditary and he is likely

to suffer the same fate. Yet the factory work
itself is incredibly alienating and in order to
get through, she makes a Disneyan move;
she imagines she is in a musical. Here the
work ethic of Mary Poppins is put into practice: Don’t just accept the drudgery of your
working condition, instead turn it into a
game! Thus the clatter, crash and clack of
heavy machinery become the soundtrack
for a work-time fantasy.
A Trip to the Bank
In Balzac, an artist tries to marry into a
bourgeois family; he carelessly remarks
that money is there to be spent—since
it is round, it must roll. The father of the
family, reacting with the deepest mistrust, replies: ‘If it is round for prodigals,
it is flat for economical people who pile it
up.’ The opposite approaches of the bohemian and the rentier (by the end of the
tale they have comfortably fused) converge in images of the concrete pleasures of money. Both are thinking of the

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has no time for charity and abhors the
waste of money, thus the old lady selling
her wares means nothing to him. For the
children, she becomes the focal point: the
very centre of the city. For the
father the bank is the centre
Michael is driven by a childlike
of the city, for the children it
is the little old bird lady. This
communism where all social cusdoubling of the city draws
toms and hierarchies are reduced to
their coins in different direcequivalence
tions. For the father, money
is for investing and therefore
of each other, with greedy precision. The money should be deposited in the bank,
spendthrift and the miser both feel the whilst for the children it is the capacity to
buy a particular pleasurable experience:
coins between their fingers.
‘feeding the birds’. When Michael asks to
Joachim Kalka - Money as we Knew It?4
use this tuppence to feed the birds, his faThe children are not the only people that ther replies “Michael, I will not permit you
Mary Poppins wants to educate. Mary to throw your money away. When we get
Poppins manipulates Mr. Banks into tak- to the bank I will show you what can be
ing the children to the bank. He, believing done with your tuppence and I think you’ll
it to be his own idea, declares it to be a find it extremely interesting.” On arrival at
“capital idea, a perfect medicine for all this the bank a further doubling of perspecslipshod, sugary female thinking they get tives takes place. Mr. Banks introduces
around here all day long.” The children, his children to the chairman of the bank,
excited that their father is going to show the elder Mr. Dawes as “a giant in the
them attention, do not interpret the trip in world of finance”. Michael is puzzled by
quite the same way as him. For them it is the father’s description and asks himself
an opportunity to see the city and all the aloud “A giant?” The father perceiving the
sights. The city bifurcates: for the Banker, world in terms of capital and status sees
the city is the site of business and com- in the elder Mr. Dawes a giant. Michael,
merce, for the children the city is a space by contrast, does not perceive this class
for “seeing sights”, for seeing things with differentiation, he sees only a hunched
no obvious practical purpose that excite wizened old man. If for the father sees the
and enthrall them; sites of aesthetic curi- banker dressed up in all his class paraosities and fun. Throughout the film these phernalia, Michael sees that the emperor
two perspectives are forced into dialectal is naked; he is simply a human being like
conflict. Mary Poppins, no doubt, fuels you and I. In this sense, Michael is unable
this conflict when she points out to the to perceive the unconditional imperative
children one of Mr. Bank’s many blinds- that motivates his father: capital. Rather
pots: the little old bird woman selling bags Michael is driven by a childlike commuof crumbs to feed the birds. To their fa- nism where all social customs and hierarther, the miser, this is a waist of money, chies are reduced to equivalence. These
and simply passes him by. Their father two perspectives come to a head, the
ways in which hands unconsciously encircle coins, a physical sensation. One
man high-spiritedly lets them roll loose,
the other deliberately stacks them on top

“

”

8

Filmmakers Journal

children are not persuaded by the opportunities of investment and want to feed the
birds; the bankers want to invest. Here the
fathers’ solipsistic consciousness is put to
the test. Being unable to see beyond the
end of his nose he cannot empathise with
his own children and has no way of reassuring and communicating with them. As
a consequence, this split of perspective
turns into a conflict. A scuffle breaks out
which frightens the customers into withdrawing all their savings from the bank. A
run on the bank ensues. A mere father-son
conflict over a tuppense turns into a crisis of capitalism itself. Mr. Banks, unable
to manage his own domestic conflicts,
manages to muddle his home life with his
work and in the process loses his own
children, who, frightened and confused,
run out of the bank. His whole frame of
reference is capital and economic calculability and thus he is unable to perceive
the very needs of his own children. Things
go full circle and now the father is placed
in the same place as the nannies he earlier scorned. Meanwhile the children are
thrust into the dark underside of London’s
financial capitalism: the slums. Here the
reality that remains hidden in the two perspectives of London (the sight seer and
the miser) is revealed: the brutal, miserable life of the excluded.
The Lucky Chimney Sweep
The children are lost in London and with
this disorientation, the secure idyllic magical London disappears and, maybe for
the first time in the film, there is a genuine sense of danger. From a dog’s bark to
an old lady who appears ready to sell the
children into slavery, the film takes an unsettling turn. We are faced with a London
without the security of money or the safe
distance of the sightseer. However, this is

Still from Mary Poppins

a Walt Disney picture and brutal confrontations with reality are not their inclination. We do not remain in this brutal reality
for long. It is as if an alternative vision of
poverty is needed, one which is less dark
and haunting. The figure of Burt, the chimney sweep, easily fits the bill; he is more
a middle class fantasy of what the working classes are like than a real pauper.
Burt appears offering a safety net, which
momentarily disappeared. In this pinnacle
scene Bert makes a speech that reveals
the film’s overall work ethic.
“You know, begging your pardon, but
the one my heart goes out to is your father.
There he is in that cold, heartless bank day
after day, hemmed in by mounds of cold,
heartless money. I don’t like to see any living thing caged up. […] They make cages
in all sizes and shapes, you know. Bankshaped some of ‘em, carpets and all.”
It is not the Chimney sweeps and the
poor that are the real exploited, but the
bankers and wealthy, those weighed
down by money. The chimney sweeps,
free from the chains of money, can leap
across the skyline singing and dancing:
they are the truly liberated! They know that
just a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down and they can do the most

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Still from Mary Poppins

10

horrible jobs, because they know that just
a little song will help turn the job into a
game. Thus, in the world of Mary Poppins the worker and the poor are the truly
liberated. In contrast the banker doesn’t
have such privilege and is weighed down
by money and respectability. In light of
this it is worth bearing in mind Theodor
Adorno and Max Horkheimer’s account
of Odysseus’ encounter with the Sirens
in Homer’s Odyssey. When sailing home,
Odysseus must pass the Sirens whose
lure “remains overpowering. No one who
hears their song can escape.”
“[Odysseus] knows only two possibilities of escape. One he prescribes to his
comrade when faced with the beautiful
He plugs their ears with wax and orders
them to row with all their might. Anyone
who wishes to survive must not listen to
the temptation of the irrecoverable, and
is unable to listen only if he is unable to
hear. Society has always made sure that
this was the case. Workers must look
ahead with alert concentration and ignore

anything which lies to one side. The urge
toward distraction must be grimly sublimated in redoubled exertions. Thus the
workers are made practical. The other
possibility Odysseus chooses for himself,
the landowner, who has others to work for
him. He listens, but does so while bound
helplessly to the mast, and the stronger
the allurement grows the more tightly he
has himself bound, just as later the bourgeois denied themselves happiness the
closer it drew to them with the increase
in their own power. What he hears has no
consequences for him; he can signal to his
men to untie him only by movements of his
head, but it is too late. His comrades, who
themselves cannot hear, know only of the
danger of the song, not of its beauty, and
leave him tied to the mast to save both him
and themselves. They reproduce the life of
the oppressor as a part of their own, while
he cannot step outside his social role. The
bonds by which he has irrevocably fettered himself to praxis at the same time
keep the Sirens at a distance from praxis:

Filmmakers Journal

their lure is neutralised as a mere object
of contemplation, as art. The fettered man
listens to a concert, as immobilized as audiences later, and his enthusiastic call for
liberation goes unheard as applause.”5
In the above account, the worker and
the bourgeois are both trapped. The bourgeois are consigned to their social role,
they have become masters of their own
bondage, which only the worker could
liberate them from. Yet the worker is oppressed and unable to perceive the beauty
that lies beyond their situation, they must
simply keep their heads looking forward
and row. However in the Poppinsian universe we are only given half of this equation. The bourgeois are bound by their social roles and they must deny themselves
happiness, yet the worker does not have
his ears plugged at all. Quite the contrary, the chimney sweeps are the liberated; they have the music already playing
in their ears. In the Poppinsian universe
utopia has come early, the workers do
not need liberating from capitalism and
as such no actual social reform is needed. However horrible the conditions of a
chimney sweep’s life is, the “sweep is as
lucky as lucky can be.”
Bankers who Fly Kites
In Mary Poppins the truly “oppressed” is
the capitalist and the middle class family. They are the ones who have to learn
to lighten up, have fun and go fly a kite.
Thus Mary Poppins does change the social
condition of work and co-ordinates of the
bourgeois family, but in a way that leaves
the lives of the workers the same. Work is
supplemented with leisure (flying a kite);
parents come to understand the needs of
children and everyone comes to understand the need for a bit of fun. Even the
banker comes to understand the Poppin-

sian alchemy (the transformation of the job
into a game). Mr. Banks’ new found sense
of humour not only earns him his job back,
but a promotion. The age of remorse is
over and the capitalists learn their lesson.
What lesson have they learnt? Instead of
learning the problems of ‘the speculation
of hedge funds, derivative markets and an
economic system based on consumption
and debt”6, they learnt to have a bit of humour. Capitalism is not overthrown, a run
on the bank cannot stop the forward march
of capital; instead it acquires a human face.
The turn to the tolerant fun-loving family is
accompanied by a return to the market and
anti-authoritarian fun becomes the order of
the day. Here we see a perfect example
of Žižek’s account of postmodern tolerance. He contrasts two fathers, the first the
“good old fashioned totalitarian father”, the
second the “tolerant postmodern father”. It
is Sunday afternoon and you have to visit
your grandmother, Žižek points out that the
“good old fashioned totalitarian father will
tell you “listen I don’t care how you feel you
have to go to your grandmother and behave appropriately.”” Here the child is able
to kick and scream and resistance remains
possible. However, the “so-called tolerant
postmodern father” uses a different tactic.
What he will tell you is the following “You know how much your grandmother
loves you. But nonetheless you should only
visit her if you really want to.” Now every
child who is not an idiot, and they are not
idiots, knows that this apparent free choice
secretly contains a much stronger order,
not only do you have to visit your grandmother, but you have to like it. That is one
example of how tolerance, choice and so
on can conceal a much stronger order.” 7
Not only does the fate of the workers
not improve, but it is also dressed up in
garb that quells any resistance and strug-

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12

gle. Mr. Banks becomes the happy-hearted banker issuing fines and re-mortgaging
houses, just as David Cameron becomes
the new Tory implementing drastic welfare
cuts and austerity with the language of
participation, democracy and the big society. Justice and equality are abandoned
in the name of freedom, fun and participation. Throughout Europe, the failure to
challenge capital has required placing the
burden on the workers (and the public
generally). The irresponsibility and greed
of the banker and the structural problems
of capitalism are increasingly re-interpreted as “too much public spending”, thus
acquitting the banker and placing blame
and burden on the people. As a result, the
public, not the banks and the commerce,
are being made to shoulder the costs.
Rather than seeking alternative solutions,
our one-dimensional discourse does nothing to challenge the hermeneutic of neoliberalism, which serves only one interest:
capital. Yet such measures are unpopular
and must therefore dress themselves in
rhetorical niceties. From the workplace
to parliament, misery and toil appears as
play, participation and choice.
The strange irony may be that the more
that play is introduced into work the more
the worker becomes trapped under work’s
spell. As Sven Lütticken notes, “Play demands active involvement, not passive
submission”8. Those elements appearing to offer more participation and more
playtime at work, may in fact disguise its
opposite: the transformation of the worker
into an all-singing, all-dancing chimney
sweep. The more we are given the illusion of our own choice, the less we feel
that we can complain and in turn the
more we become compliant in the system
that enslaves us. Because “emphasis on
creativity and playfulness is perfect for le-

gitimising ever-increasing in-equality in a
stationary or shrinking economy”9 the idea
of work as play increasingly becomes its
opposite and a genuine liberation within
work remains unachieved.
What differentiates the overworked
Donald Duck in Der Fuehrer’s Face and
the Chimney sweeps in Mary Poppins is
that the Chimney sweeps have learnt to
accept their servitude. Mary Poppins conducts the perverse chimera of treating
the workers as free when they obviously
aren’t. True freedom cannot be found by
simply whistling while you work. In this
respect the happy hearted roustabouts in
Dumbo who “slave until they are almost
dead” are the possible flip side to the
chimney sweeps who step in time. Work
itself remains a tortuous grind, but must
be layered with a sweet sugary coating,
something to keep the workers happy and
distracted as their conditions worsen.
Mary Poppins II:
The Chimney Sweeps’ Revolution
Disney often has a tendency to give unsatisfactory endings. Cinderella must escape
servitude by marrying into wealth; Dumbo
must escape discrimination by becoming a star. Society itself never changes;
some people just get lucky. Mary Poppins is no exception. Yet it is hard not
to notice the lost potential in Mary Poppins. Not only is there a substantial critique of bourgeois society, but also the
energy of the chimney sweeps seems to
present us with a misplaced revolutionary fire; this energy builds throughout the
chimney sweep section of the film and, in
the process, distinctions and hierarchies
erode. After leaping across the rooftops,
the chimney sweeps descend down into
the Banks’ household still leaping and
dancing. In moving from their assigned

Filmmakers Journal

Still from Mary Poppins

zone on the chimney tops to the family
house the chimney sweeps transgress a
boundary that keeps the workers at a
‘safe distance’ from the bourgeois private sphere. Yet the workers appear not
to acknowledge this boundary and leap
and dance all around the floor. Just as
Michael is unable to comprehend how a
wizened old man could be a giant, so too,
do the chimney sweeps seem unable to
comprehend the public/private distinction
that keeps them at a safe distance. In the
process further social categories disintegrate. First the maid is incorporated into
the jig. Her first reaction is shock, “Ow!”
she exclaims, but the “Ow!” is simply incorporated into the song, as the chimney
sweeps sing “Ow, step in time”. She is incorporated into the dance and soon her
cries of “Ow!” transform into some form
of enjoyment. Nor does Mrs. Banks’ return put a stop to this transgression; she
too is quickly incorporated into the dance
when the chimney sweeps call “Votes for
women, step in time.” Her first reaction is

“Oh, no, really, not at the moment.” but
this soon transforms into a determined
passionate call, “Votes for women!”, and
she joins the chimney sweep’s dance. It
is as if the chimney sweeps dance is a
revolutionary fever, which rips through the
house acquiring momentum and broadening its base as it goes. Here a more radical conception of work becomes possible.
Instead of seeing the Chimney sweeps as
glorifying work as it exists, we could imagine this revolutionary fever fueling a kind
of work that would overcome the conditions of work as they exist: the work of the
revolutionary. If the work/play dichotomy
is to be truly overcome it will require more
than learning how to whistle. For Adorno,
the positive side of work “lies in the teleology that work potentially makes work
superfluous”. In the same document
Horkheimer adds “A shaft of light from the
telos falls onto labour. Basically, people
are too short-sighted. They misinterpret
the light that falls on labour from ultimate
goals. Instead, they take labour qua la-

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bour as the telos and hence see their personal work success as that purpose. […]
A shaft of light from the telos falls on the
means to achieve it. It is just as if instead
of worshipping their lover they worship the
house in which she dwells. […] The shaft
of light must be reflected back by an act
of resistance.”10 Work contains the means
for overcoming of work and the path to
human flourishing; this is the genuine purpose of work. But work is fetishised and
drained of its true meaning. To combat
this, the telos must be reflected back, not
by supplementing work with play but via
resistance and struggle for work as a drive
towards a genuine purpose.
What if this was the missed possibility of
Mary Poppins? It is in this respect that we
should imagine an alternative Mary Poppins, a sequal maybe, where Mary Poppins
is blown into the future, returning to empower the chimney sweeps, who, clasping
their little red (Mary Poppins) books, join
her in the social struggle and a long march
to liberation, thus setting into motion a
genuine synthesis of work and play.

1 In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engles makes a remark
that hints at an alternative reading of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.
“Modern bourgeois society,” they write “with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured
up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like
the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the
nether world whom he has called up by his spells.” In light of
this we may propose an alternative reading of the scene. The
sorcerer, his apprentice and the brooms can be read as referring
to three separate sections of society: the feudal landowner, the
bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bourgeoisie seek to liberate
themselves from the feudal system and conjure up the magical
spell which is modern industrial capitalism. The bourgeoisie are
liberated from the daily grind by the proletariat, who work to
ensure the bourgeoisie’s freedom. Yet in conjuring up modern
industrial capitalism, they lose control of capital itself, a process
of valorisation and devalorisation takes hold and capital takes on
a character of its own. The bourgeoisie become unable to take
control of the world they brought into being. In this situation the
industrial worker that the bourgeoisie brought about, becomes a
revolutionary worker and rises up against them.
2 Slovoj Žižek, Living in the End Times. Verso: London. p. 334
3 It should be noted that Mary Poppins is a rather different
Nanny in the P.L. Travers books. Rather than having a cheery
disposition, Mary Poppins is generally stern; always cross, as
well as being vain and easily offended. These character traits
almost seem to disappear in the film. Whilst the book tends to
be a collection of separate short adventures, Disney attempted
to weave them into a unifying story. It is here that the ‘work as
play’ theme comes to prominence. The trip to the bank and
Mrs. Banks’ joining the suffragettes are also invention of the
film. Overall the film tended to politicize aspects of the book,
not the other way around.
4 Joachim Kalka, Money as we Knew It? New Left Review 2/60.
November-December 2009. p. 65
5 Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of
Enlightenment.
(See
http://www.sup.org/html/book_pages/0804736324/Chapter%201.pdf, sourced on January 2011)
6 Costas Douzinas and Slavoj Žižek ‘Introduction: The Idea of
communism’ in Douzinas and Žižek ed. The Idea of Communism, Verso: London. p.vii
7 See the Astra Taylor film, Zizek! ICA Films. 26:52
8 Sven Lütticken, Playtimes, New Left Review, 2/66. November-December 2010. p.136
9 Sven Lütticken, Playtimes, New Left Review, 2/66. November-December 2010. p.138
10 — Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer -Towards a New
Manifesto? New Left Review. 2/65. Sept/Oct 2010. p.35

14

Filmmakers Journal

Another (Communist)
Planet
Zeitgeist and the Venus Project
James Marcus Tucker

Zeitgeist: Moving Forward Poster

In the Reagan era play, Other People’s
Money by Jerry Sterner, a soulless banker destroys the livelihoods of thousands
of men by buying up an ageing wire and
cable manufacturing company on Long
Island. Where the struggling, but determined company founder and owner sees
history, tradition, family and livelihoods,
the banker sees dollar bills. It is a timely
(late 1980’s) warning about the social consequences of heartless capitalism. Or
more to the point, the inhuman cost of the
immoral monetary system. The banker,
Lawrence “Larry the Liquidator” Garfield,
even proudly states as much – claiming

that he loves money, partly due to the fact
that it doesn’t care what you do. Capitalism is a game, and if a few thousand people have to lose, then so be it. In a last
ditch effort to save his own skin, the periled company’s manager goes behind the
back of the company owner and tries to
do a deal with Larry that would help him
win the support of the shareholders and
in return, secure himself a nice lump sum
when the company collapses and he ultimately loses his job. He tells the audience guiltily, “everybody has to look after
themselves”. Larry has no such guilt, he is
a true Marxian style commodity fetishist.

15

One+One

His mantra is “Make as much as you can.
For as long as you can. Whoever has the
most when he dies, WINS.” The big lesson
however is that whilst Larry the Liquidator’s actions are morally dubious at best, it
doesn’t mean of course, that he is acting
illegally. Larry is acting within the system
- albeit pushing it to its logical conclusion:
human suffering.
It is easy to view Larry as a two-dimensional “bad guy” – a kind of pantomime villain. He is certainly portrayed as such. Yet,
when we look to our recent financial crisis,
and the current unpopularity of bankers
on Wall Street and in the City, we can see
that for many, such pantomime villains really do exist. It is easy to cry “wankers” at
the men in suits, shuffling numbers around,
producing nothing whilst making money off
of money. It makes us feel better. They
are, in Slavoj Žižek’s term, a “toxic subject”
to be scapegoated for society’s ills – you
know, like immigrants, teenage mothers or
anyone else the Daily Mail wishes to hate
that particular day. But then, we must recognise, as we do with Larry the Liquidator that the bankers were simply working
within a system and taking it to its logical
conclusion. When money no longer represents true value and is no longer linked
to resources, it can be made out of thin air
and huge profits can be made from nothing. To keep the system safe, “state socialism-in-reverse” is administered in the
form of a bail-out when the over inflated
bubble bursts; a safety-net that the poorest in society could only dream about and
the system creaks along, altered, bruised,
but ultimately unchanged.

16

Beyond the paradigm?
Between 2007 and 2011, a series of films
emerged on the internet which sought
to envision a world that existed beyond

the economic and social reality we find
ourselves in. The documentary films,
each produced by Peter Joseph, Zeitgeist (2007), Zeitgeist: Addendum (2008)
and Zeitgeist: Moving Forward (2011)
have spawned an internet based “activist
movement” known as the Zeitgeist Movement and become internet phenomenons.
The first film in particular for its controversial and much criticised (and debunked by
counter arguments on YouTube videos)
views on the historical validity of Christianity, its claim (made by many others also)
that 9/11 was perpetrated not by radical
Islamists, but by the US government, and
it’s argument that the monetary system
(particularly as seen in the US and it’s
Federal Reserve) was a fraudulent system designed, like religion, to keep people
separate, afraid and slavish. The sequels
continue its investigation into the brokenness of the monetary system and offer
a vision of an alternative system it calls
a “resource based economy” focussed
upon sustainability (something unimaginable in a profit driven, necessarily waste
producing economy). The films draw on
an American based organisation known
as the Venus Project for its ideas of an alternative society. The Venus Project can
best be described by quoting its Wikipedia page:
According to (Futurist Jacque Fresco),
poverty, crime, corruption and war are the
result of scarcity created by the present
world’s profit-based economic system. He
theorizes that the profit motive also stifles
the progress of socially beneficial technology. Fresco claims that the progression of
technology, if it were carried on independently of its profitability, would make more
resources available to more people by
producing an abundance of products and
materials. This new-found abundance of

Filmmakers Journal

in the original language of the Greeks
or Hebrews. The very real questions
which can, and should be raised about
the validity to Biblical “truth” are washed
away in sensational and easily attested
claims, swift editing, pacey music and
flashing graphics. As much as one may
wish to agree with Peter Joseph, and
find the film’s desire to make the viewer
question assumed truths worthy of applause, it is impossible not to regret his
methods and questionable source material. The claims it makes about 9/11 –
primarily that international bankers were
behind the terrorist attacks in New York
to create fear and a social climate amenable to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
are nothing new - the internet documentary film Loose Change and its reedits/
sequels have made the same (watered
down with each edit) claims since 2005.
Again, the very real problems, mysteries and political scandals surrounding
the events that day and in the following
“War on Terror” years are ignored for
sensational fear mongering about the
hidden illuminate supposedly
hell-bent on creating a oneit is at risk of forever being tarworld government.
nished by questionable standards
A full blown dedication to conand practices of production
spiracy theory seems to be the
first film’s prime intent. As with
of crafting an argument from scholarly all conspiracy theories, it ultimately relies
sources or expert interviews, we hear on the viewers desire to feel as if they are
Peter Joseph’s voice-over set to cartoon being let in on a secret – and is found in
imagery illustrating the point he makes. good company along with moon landings,
The dots it tries to join are often strained JFK and aliens amongst us. For me, it is a
in the extreme – for example, in trying shame because what Zeitgeist ends up beto persuade us that the ancient worship ing is so much more worthy than its conspirof the Sun morphed itself into the wor- acy roots. Perhaps Peter Joseph was unaship of Jesus the “Son of God”, it tries to ware at first that his film would be followed
draw a homophonic link between “Son” by more traditional forms of documentary
and “Sun”. Yet this fails to take into ac- story-telling in less conspiratorial sequels
count that this link could not be drawn that would be more focussed on the mon-

resources would, according to Fresco, reduce the human tendency toward individualism, corruption, and greed, and instead
rely on people helping each other.1
Zeitgeist: Moving Forward was released in January this year on DVD, in
selected theatres and on the internet for
free streaming and it is this film I wish to
focus upon primarily in this essay. But it
is important to at least consider the first
film Zeitgeist in more detail because it is
with this film that the movement became
widespread and caught the attention of
the world at large. It is perhaps a shame
that Peter Joseph decided to create his
first documentary in such an expository,
propagandistic and agitprop manner.
For the movement’s ultimate aim – that
of persuading the world to rid itself of
its unsustainable, unfair and poverty inducing system, is at risk of being forever
tarnished by the first film’s questionable
standards and practices of production.
The film makes absolutely no recourse
to even-handedness in its attack on the
validity of Jesus’ existence. Instead

“

”

17

One+One

etary system and the Venus Project’s concepts. Or perhaps he was making his bold
statements in the hope that people would
be moved to anger by a general “man behind the curtain” threat, and thus more open
to the idea that society was sick and needed
to change. His thinking would seem to be:
Destroy everything they think they know
about the world (or at least major cultural
parts of it), then they can be prepared to entertain an alternative.
By its third instalment, Zeitgeist: Moving Forward, Peter Joseph utilises a more
interactive documentary approach – interviewing notable and accredited thinkers,
including scientists (such as Robert Sapolsky from Stanford University), physicians,
university professors and philosophers. His
ultimate desire is yet again to persuade the
viewer of something they may not have considered. But unlike the near impossible to
verify claims found in the first film - such as
Jesus’ twelve disciples not being human but
representing the twelve signs of the zodiac
- here Joseph has hard evidence and real
examples to back up his claims. Right from
the beginning, the system as we know it begins to crumble under Joseph’s findings.

18

Products of our environment
In an effort to show how human beings
are not innately predetermined by their
genes the film begins with scientist Robert Sapolsky describing the nature vs.
nurture debate as a “false dichotomy.”
He states that “it is virtually impossible
to understand how biology works, outside the context of environment.” We are
shown that it is neither nature nor nurture
that shapes human behaviour but both
are linked contributory factors. The interviewees’ state that even with genetic predispositions to diseases, the expression
and manifestation of disease is largely

determined by environmental stressors.
One study discussed, showed that newly
born babies are more likely to die if they
are not touched and another posits that
if babies are not subjected to light within
the first few years of birth, their eyes will
not develop the ability to see. Humans, it
seems, are products of their environment.
Environmentally, certain things must happen, and certain things shouldn’t, if a
child is to develop healthily (physically
and emotionally). If we develop within a
world where resources are scarce, where
inequality is high and our human dignity
is not assumed – then criminal behaviour
as a means to survive is endemic, social
levels of health are lower and the standard
of living as a whole is negatively affected.
To add more stress to this point (and to
show these findings are not exclusive to
handpicked scientists for the film), in a recent BBC TV lecture entitled Justice: Fairness and the Big Society, Harvard University Professor Michael Sandel highlighted
how in countries such as Denmark and
Germany, social mobility was higher than
in countries such as the UK and in the USA
that have less equal societies. It seemed
as if higher levels of inequality within the
system meant it was harder and less likely
for people to move up and out of their lower income group (so much for the American Dream!) In similar findings, a section
of Zeitgeist: Moving Forward produces
graphs with a mean average line highlighting how in less equal societies, the health
socioeconomic gradient becomes steeper
– even in countries with universal healthcare. How can this be so? The simple and
everyday reality of stress associated with
poverty it seems, plays a large part in the
health determination of an individual. But
for society as a whole too, the findings
presented from equalitytrust.org.uk are

Filmmakers Journal

The Venus Project, courtesy www.thevenusproject.com

striking – graphs present steep gradients
representing how in less equal societies,
life expectancy decreases, drug abuse is
higher, mental illness is more common,
social capital (the ability of people to trust
each other) is lower, average educational
scores are lower, homicide rates are higher,
rates of imprisonment are higher – the list
of negatively affected symptoms goes on
and on in less equal societies, including
obesity and infant mortality.
The monetary system
Human inequality across the globe is
seen as a product of the monetary system. Naomi Klein has already done some
wonderful work exposing the hidden outof-sight consequence of our branded
consumer culture: slave-labour. But in
Zeitgeist: Moving Forward the human consequences of this inequality is highlighted
by referencing the plight of AIDS victims in

Africa and contrasting it with the relative
wellness of people with HIV in the west
who have a virtually normal life expectancy thanks to access to new anti-retroviral
drugs. The problems are not born from
the lack of available drugs, but by the
system which demands a certain level of
income to afford them. The film makes a
stark claim, but one I agree with. It is not
HIV that is killing over 1 million people a
year in Africa – it is the socio-economic
system which denies them treatment plain and simple.
The idea that capitalism creates a balance through an “invisible hand of God” –
in the words of philosopher and economist
Adam Smith - is shown to be unrealistic.
This idea that the market somehow, religiously causes equilibrium in fact makes
the system, in effect, God itself. Joseph
explains that the beginning of this system
was at least based upon tangible goods -

19

One+One

the supply and demand of desired material
objects. From the film: “Adam Smith never
fathomed that the most profitable economic sector on the planet would eventually be in the arena of financial trading – or
so called ‘investment’ – where money itself
is simply gained by the movement of other
money, in an arbitrary game which holds
zero productive merit to society”. In our
society money is treated as a commodity
in and of itself! Just ask Larry the Liquidator. This profit interest has separated
from any form of life value. We use GDP
as an indicator of health – but GDP is just a
money sequence, an economic extraction
– and has no connection to the reality of
human happiness or need fulfilment. For
example, in the USA, health care spending was 17.3% of GDP in 2009 ($2.5 trillion
spent), creating a positive effect upon this
economic measure – i.e. lots of services offered / money spent = higher GDP. But of
course, what does spending on health care
really represent but the money being spent
on illness treatment? The USA’s GDP (market value of its entire goods and services)
being so highly saturated with products to
treat illness could not be seen, surely, as
the sign of a healthy society.

A solution?
Simply, the Venus Project. Unfortunately,
Zeitgeist offers us no idea on how we can
attain this new earth. We are told that a
moneyless society built with
sustainability, technology and
human equality in mind could
the top 1% own 40% of the
rise from the ground up, if we
planet’s wealth
were beginning anew. But as
to how we create it after thouMuch time is spent discussing the sands of years of civilization, we are left
flawed and arbitrary logic of the money clueless. What this new earth looks like,
supply, debt, inflation and interest. We however, is quite specific – from the types
are shown how there is no profit without of technology we use to the methods of
problem solving – hence, no profit without power production, farming and the shape
problems. Crime (the private prison sys- and layout of the city. The computer cretem), war (weapons trade) and sickness ated designs show sci-fi looking buildings
(health care) keep our economic system surrounded by acres of green space, all
going along with consumption which is neatly and cleanly laid – there is not a hair

“

20

fundamentally wasteful and unsustainable.
We are told that to make the most sustainable, efficient products would be mathematically impossible if the manufacturer is
to be competitive. This reality can be seen
by simply visiting the mountains of landfills
spreading across the world. This wastefulness is not necessary however – most of
the discarded material is primarily due to
the breakdown of smaller parts within larger goods. For example, a chip inside your
computer, a LED panel behind your TV etc.
In an efficient conservative society where
the world’s finite resources are considered,
these parts could be fixed to extend the
life of the good. However, Zeitgeist tells us
that efficiency, sustainability and preservation are enemies of our economic system.
Along with this unsustainability, we are
reminded how 18,000 children a day die
from starvation, how global poverty rates
have doubled since the 1970s and that
the top 1% own more than 40% of the
planet’s wealth.

”

Filmmakers Journal

set of challenges – memorising, word puzzles, spatial puzzles etc. Students were
incentivised with different rewards - being
offered low, through medium, to high monetary amounts for success. Contrary to all expected outcomes,
money, it seems, is not the
where the task demanded even
incentive we so easily assumed
the smallest amount of cognitive
it is
skill, the promise of a larger reward led to poorer performance.
the cynics concern over jobs – well, as The research was funded by the Federal
most jobs would be obsolete as technol- Reserve Bank, so could not have been exogy overtakes, most people will not need pected (by cynics) to be biased towards
jobs. The jobs that remain necessary will an anti-profit outcome. This test has been
be filled by volunteers because such jobs duplicated numerous times using higher
will be essential to the continuation of a levels of rewards – such as with workers
society that works so well for all people. in rural India – with the same outcome.
It does sound a little unrealistic, goes the Money, it seems, is not the incentive we
objection. What about simply lazy people? have so easily assumed it is. But even
Again, Zeitgeist: Moving Forward informs more, when a task requires complicated
us, laziness is environmental – not innate. and creative conceptual thinking, large
Just like inequality, it is a product of our monetary incentives actually reduce the
current system, and it is easy to under- capacity for people to succeed. When
stand this point. In a system that leaves money is taken out of the equation, so
people behind, and one finds oneself with that people are concentrating on the
scarce options (for example, sitting on the work itself, and not on the money they
couch or working at McDonald’s 12 hours will achieve from the task, challenge and
a day for minimum wage), laziness be- mastery, along with the desire to make a
comes a very real, very appealing option. contribution are the reasons people seem
The motivation to do something does not to continually behave outside of economic
reside with profit alone. To anchor this expectations of human behaviour.2
point, Joseph reminds us that children
The point Zeitgeist: Moving Forward
are probably the most active and inquisi- makes, and makes incredibly well is that
tive of humans. They are not motivated by everything we think we know about humans
money, greedy or lazy. The need to make is because as humans, we exist in THIS
money as adults takes over from this de- system. Every problem thrown up against
sire to create, and we become slaves to the idea that we can work together for a
the profit drive.
common good relies on examples from huIn regards to profit motive, some interest- man behaviour in THIS system. If a totally
ing information has become available from reworked system was to magically appear
the Royal Society for the encouragement when we wake up tomorrow, I have every
of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. A confidence that so many of the worlds ills
study held at the Massachusetts Institute could be wiped away, that human laziness
of Technology gave a group of students a could be replaced with a moneyless and
out of place, a dish left to be washed! In
the Venus Project’s civilization, such social problems created by money and inequality do not materialise. In answer to

“

”

21

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The Venus Project, courtesy www.thevenusproject.com

22

profit exempt desire to work. But how do
we get there? What physical and social
revolution needs to happen, and who do
we have to persuade in order to change it?
The subtitle of the final film “Moving Forward” is perhaps misinforming. The second film in the trilogy Zeitgeist: Addendum,
like its successor, detailed the catastrophic
and unsustainable monetary system, and
highlighted the merits of the Venus Project.
I saw it at a screening in Brighton not long
after its release. The experience was enlightening primarily because of the arguments it raised in the post-screening discussion. It seemed the (largely academic
and left-leaning) audience were onside

with the films general premise and sharing
in the anger from its attack on the monetary system, its revelation about the USA’s
economically driven involvement in South
American coups and calls for certain product boycotts, but were at odds over the
merits and realities of the Venus Project.
So it was with excitement I viewed the very
promising “Moving Forward” finale. I was
expecting, perhaps, a how-to approach
for transformation. Instead, we get more
information on the ills of the current system, and the perceived merits of the Venus
Project - notably, to the exclusion of other
ideas or projects. The Venus Project’s own
website does go into more detail, however,

Filmmakers Journal

about how such a society can be realised,
and the steps they are taking already to experiment with their ideas.
I did appreciate the second film’s commitment to the concept of interdependence. The film perceived the Earth as a
singular living organism and, like the first
film, played to the audience’s emotions by
asking us to consider the human being as
a part of the whole, distracted by dimensional distinctions (religion, politics, race,
wealth etc.) above our common, universal
concerns as humans. This idea was beautifully highlighted for me in a segment of
the Canadian documentary film Examined
Life (2008) by Astra Taylor. Philosopher
Judith Butler walks through the streets of
San Francisco with disability activist and
painter Sunaura Taylor discussing disability. They decide to go into a clothing store
where Taylor, physically handicapped,
navigates her way through the physical
actions of trying on and buying a sweater.
Afterwards, Butler raises the very point
that “help” – often looked down upon in
our individualistic society – is something
we all need, considered disabled or not.
We are an interdependent species that
cannot exist without the “help” or abilities
of others. Butler asks rhetorically “Do we
or do we not live in a world where we help
each other…assist each other with basic
needs?” Zeitgeist would argue the case
that under the current system, the answer
is no – or at least not if it’s to the detriment
of that system.
Rebranded Future
Zeitgeist: Moving Forward takes great
pains to argue that it exists beyond the
current political paradigm. They say the
future it proposes goes beyond left or
right. But here is Karl Marx in The German
Ideology (1845):

“In communist society, where nobody
has one exclusive sphere of activity but
each can become accomplished in any
branch he wishes, society regulates the
general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish
in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening,
criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind,
without ever becoming hunter, fisherman,
herdsman or critic.”
If the paradigm it aims to raise beyond
is the historically dominant polarity, then its
claim is technically correct. Yet one feels
that Joseph does protest too much. Zeitgeist, perhaps unknowingly, is waving the
little red book for pure Communism – a
stateless, classless society where people
exist free from alienations and inequality.
To quote from Alain Badiou’s Communist
Hypothesis:
“‘Communist’ means, first, that the
logic of class...is not inevitable; it can be
overcome...a different collective organization is practicable, one that will eliminate
the inequality of wealth and even the division of labour. The private appropriation of
massive fortunes and their transmission by
inheritance will disappear. The existence of
a coercive state, separate from civil society,
will no longer appear a necessity: a long
process of reorganization based on a free
association of producers will see it withering away.” 3
Perhaps in Joseph’s desire to escape
the trappings of the (incorrect) label “socialist” (nothing less than an insult in his
homeland) he denies the roots of his film’s
ideology. These roots can be found neither
in the realm of totalitarian Statism in any of
its various historical guises (Leninism, Maoism, Stalinism etc), nor socialism, which, to
quote Negri, is “nothing other than one of
the forms taken by capitalist management

23

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of the economy and of power”4. It is however a form of (arguably) unrealised Communism as Marx envisaged, whether Joseph
likes it or not. It was the idea of Communism after all, that saw the withering away
of the State. The role the State has to play
in the transition towards such a society from
the standpoint of capitalism has been, of
course, contested and fought over by thinkers engaged in emancipatory politics since
Marx, and this battle ground is probably not
one that Zeitgeist wishes to engage its populist audience with. With such “leftist” associations, the historical roots of the Venus
Project and Zeitgeist movement could never
be admitted if the ideas that drive them are
to be palatable for a western (and specifically American) audience. The Venus Project
and Zeitgeist do indeed reach for an alternative to so much of our ancestors (and our
own) lived social experience – but it does
so mostly by repackaging and rebranding
an old, failed to (yet) materialise idea for the
21st Century.
Whether successful in fermenting a realised revolution or not, we can at least be
thankful for The Venus Project, this movement and its documentaries’ existence.
They remain, for now, as ideas and possibilities. As we have seen with the revolutions
and civil unrest in the Arab world recently,
the internet as a tool for social consciousness, awareness and activism is enabling
information and ideas to be shared at a rate
impossible to have comprehended even 10
years ago. Zeitgeist rests, for the moment
within this sphere – consciousness-raising.

24

I was discussing The Venus Project
with my boyfriend in public yesterday, and
somebody nearby looked up and said “The
Venus Project? Oh yes I saw it on Zeitgeist…but it wouldn’t work. Without prisons or laws, what do you do with bad people?” It was interesting to recognise how
such views on human nature and defeatist
attitudes on the path to human emancipation can stop people before they even
begin to dream. So in response I wish to
quote Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive of
the aforementioned RSA. In his speech
entitled 21st Century Enlightenment, he
says “Creative people who want to make
a difference have a million and one opportunities and distractions. To engage
them means an ethic that is intolerant to
negativity, rigid thinking and self promotion, and instead keeps them constantly in
touch with the words of the anthropologist
Margaret Mead – never doubt that a small
group of thoughtful, committed citizens
can change the world, indeed it is the only
thing that ever has.”
For more information on the Zeitgeist
Movement and the three films, see
www.zeitgeistmovie.com
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Venus_Project Sourced 1603-2011
2 Findings from the The RSA.org See http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc&sns=tw
3 Badiou, A., The Communist Hypothesis, http://newleftreview.
org/?view=2705
4 Negri, A., and Guattari, F., Communists like Us, Autonomedia,
1985, Page 167

‘In the realm of artistic life, there are more
spectators now than at any other moment in history. This is the first stage in the
abolition of “elites.” The task currently at
hand is to find out if the conditions which
will enable spectators to transform themselves into agents — not merely more active spectators, but genuine co-authors —
are beginning to exist. The task at hand is
to ask ourselves whether art is really an activity restricted to specialists, whether it is,
through extra-human design, the option of
a chosen few or a possibility for everyone.’
Julio Garcia Espinsosa.

Jacques Ranciere has noted a primary political concern is the lack of recognition by
those dominated in society. He considers
the responsibility of one who has an influence, is not to talk on behalf of the masses, but rather to use their privileged position to facilitate the self-expression of new
voices by opening up potential for new
dialogues and the sharing of knowledge.
The central political act of Imperfect Cinema is aesthetic, in that it produces a rearrangement of a social order, where new
voices and bodies previously unseen can
be heard in a participatory context outside
of the academicised-experimental and

capitalist-consumerist mainstreams of
film culture. Imperfect Cinema’s aim is to
create a democratic and sustainable underground Cinema with the central aim of
providing a venue for participatory activity
outside of the aforementioned enclaves of
contemporary film culture.
We take inspiration from Espinsosa’s
essay, quoted above and first published
in English in the now defunct British film
magazine Afterimage in 1971, and Ranciere’s fundamental theoretical framework: The Politics of Aesthetics. Far more
than just academic research, our aim is to
create a dialectic venue for participatory
activity in which the problems of both exclusivity and sustainability in mainstream
film culture can be explored and discussed. As Dr Duncan Reekie of The Exploding Cinema has observed, the experimental & short-form film has for too long
been the preserve of an academicised
elite, or alternatively viewed as the juvenile
‘stepping stone’ to the mature feature film,
a more easily commercially exploitable
commodity. This is an incredibly revealing
observation as it draws attention not only
to the abundant inequalities & enclaves
existent within these mainstreams of film
culture, but also to a value system which

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Imperfect Cinema 2 poster

26

hierarchically positions short-form as â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;less
than.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; Our aim is to find new means of exploring and articulating these problems,
by bringing together a tactile network of
film activists, and by adopting trans-disciplinarity as a means of critically reframing the experimental & short form film. Of
course, issues of sustainability have arguably become part of the zeitgeist, but
this issue is not only economic and environmental, it is also social. Positioning
practice, criticality and form in a hierarchy

which is potentially inaccessible to most
does not bode well for either the sustainability of our art form, or for its chances of
discovering new territories of thought and
practice. Added to these concerns is an
imaging industry which has become reliant on obsolescence, where the functional
life of technology is far greater than its operational use. Just think how many television sets you have been told represent the
latest in the televisual home viewing experience in the past decade alone. Where do

Filmmakers Journal

they go when the new one arrives? For the
film artist the concern is also one of paints
and brushes. Sometimes we paint with
Ektachrome and a Nizo brush, sometimes
with an Alexa & binary. Of course what Arri
won’t tell you is the fact that one is not
‘better’ than another, just different. In the
age of obsolescence, the work of the film
artist is problematised by technological
redundancy, we are in danger of losing our
brushes and paints as the detritus of this
economic model. This provides us with a
unique opportunity to become activists;
to activate a dialogue through practice
where the very use of that which has been
cast aside by the new, might find new life
and new context. For Imperfect Cinema
the act of making is both a political and
necessarily dialectic act, with which we
can explore, confront, concur or criticise
these and other issues existent in film culture and beyond.

logical techniques of this subculture to
describe, position, interrogate, disseminate and socialize a dialogue which addresses key issues of concern to contemporary film culture.
Julio Garcia Espinsosa’s 1969 Third
Cinema manifesto ‘For an Imperfect Cinema’ called for filmmaking to become not
an elitist art, but to be made by the masses and not for the masses. ‘...our future
filmmakers, will themselves be scientists,
sociologists, physicians, economists, agricultural engineers, etc., without of course
ceasing to be filmmakers.’ Building on
Espinosa’s call to end exclusivity, this research aims to mobilise a film community
by valourising and celebrating non-virtuosity, contextualising amateurism as the
enthusiastic pursuit of an objective, (rather
than as the inferior / juvenile version of
‘professional’ which for this project is contextualized as engaging in a given activity
as a source of livelihood or as a career),
not to reject out of hand the notion of
‘professionalism’ but to problematise the
hierarchical framing and valuing of results.
Espinsosa states, ‘a future imperfect cinema is ‘the opposite of a cinema principally
dedicated to celebrating results.’ He goes

DiY Punk as Methodology
Imperfect Cinema employs a DiY punk
methodology to produce, disseminate
and socialise a popular radical film
practice. We outlined key aspects of
this methodological approach in a paper which was delivered at
the Radical British Screens
celebrating non-virtuosity, contexSymposium, which argued
for a shifting of the con- tualising amateurism as the enthusitextual lens through which astic pursuit of an objective
‘punk’ is to be understood
in relation to our Imperfect
Cinema project, away from the numer- on to say ‘Imperfect Cinema is no longer
ous coffee table tomes & hip ephemera interested in quality of technique. It can be
of the first wave and towards the com- created equally well with a Mitchell or with
paratively underground DiY and anar- an 8mm camera, in a studio or in a guerrilla
chopunk movements. In contextualis- camp in the middle of the jungle’, making a
ing DiY punk’s relationship to cinema distinct comment on the narrow confines
we are able to activate key methodo- of industrialised production value systems.

“

”

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No Wave Cinema
There is a distinct historical precedent for
the convergence between punk and cinema. Termed No Wave, New Cinema, (or
‘Punk Cinema’ by Macdonald and Kerekes)
these 1970s filmmakers in New York paralleled Punks energy, iconography, and aggressive DiY aesthetic. They converged
popular culture with experimental/art house
cinema, with the intention to critique and
screen work outside of traditional models and exhibition spaces. Rather than a
cohesive group, they embodied a diverse
and fragmented collection of individuals,
empowered by the collaborative DiY punk
ethos. Musicians made and acted in films,
music venues became cinemas, documentary and fiction was blurred, and amateur
technologies were re-appropriated, harnessing their radical potential to both upset
and provide aesthetic separation from the
alienating production values of commercial
cinema. No Wave filmmakers rejected the
heavily-theorised enclaves of the structuralist movement, paralleling punk music’s
answer to bloated self-indulgence of 1970s
mainstream rock. They found new spaces
to show and distribute their work, screening films in drive-ins, rock clubs, and even
prisons. They embodied a radical collective
sensibility: they acted in each other’s films,
wrote scores, and encouraged others to do
the same. However the development of our
Imperfect Cinema’s own ‘scene’ should not
be viewed as a revisionist imitation of the No
Wave Cinema movement. Indeed, like any
reactionary phenomenon, No Wave should
be framed within its historical context, especially as many of its then subversive techniques have been appropriated by mainstream film culture. For example, a great
deal of their output was pastiche: a binary
of lowbrow and highbrow tastes united by
an aggressive punk rock attitude. To simply

mimic this aesthetic would today be an impotent exercise as it is found in abundance
in the political vacuum of the multiplex. Imperfect Cinema is dedicated to exploring a
new and more relevant political aesthetic
and to the harnessing of trans- disciplinary
dialogues to address the real world problems of exclusivity and sustainability existent in mainstreams film culture.
Micro Cinema and the (Re) Distribution
of the Sensible:
Imperfect Cinema has thus far produced
four events. The Imperfect Cinema
Launch event, which was an introduction
to the aims and objectives of the project,
the Imperfect Cinema 1 event which was
the first of our manifestoed provocations
and the subsequent Imperfect Cinema 1
Screening event in which the responses
to the manifestoed provocations were
screened and discussed. The latest was
called the Imperfect ‘free’ cinema event,
which was free of restrictions, manifestoes and screened all films under three
minutes. Every event features a manifesto which serves to situate the context
of the event and act as a provocation to
action, a fanzine style periodical which
provides further context to each project
and which also provides an open tactile
vehicle for the collective to further share
ideas and opinions, and a special event,
(which has thus far taken the form of contributions by guest speakers and preview
screenings of film’s of particular relevance
to the project). Each event also contains
an ‘Open Reel’ section, which continuing
DiY Punks egalitarian dialectic is a space
in which the collective are able to screen
work which has been not been specifically produced in response to one of the
manifestoed provocations. Central to our
framing of the project up to now has been

Filmmakers Journal

At the Imperfect Cinema 1 event

creation of a venue for what Ranciere describes as ‘forms of participation in a common world’ (Ranciere 2006: 85). Ranciere
says we need to upset the social order for
equality so that new voices can be heard:
‘Equality is fundamental and absent, timely and untimely, always up to the initiative
of individuals and groups who...take the
risk of verifying their equality, or inventing
individual and collective forms for its verification’ (Ranciere in Biesta: 2010).
Imperfect Cinema has adopted easily
understood cultural frameworks of reference to abstract ideas in order to facilitate aesthetic ownership. For example the
manifesto of Imperfect Cinema 1 framed
the three-minute film thus ‘The Ramones
only needed three minutes, so do you.’
This statement works in a number of
ways, firstly it references the punk egalitarian axiom: here are three chords: now
start a band, but also serves to re-frame
the short film by its comparison with the
duration of a punk song. Just as these
were not viewed as being juvenile versions

of more lengthy progressive rock songs,
but as distinctly different forms, so shortform films can also be viewed as being
distinctly different rather than inferior to
the more commercially exploitable ‘professionalised’ format, the feature film. The
tactile distribution of work produced in response to the Imperfect Cinema 1 manifesto will be on an ecodisc DVD which
will include all the films screened, taking
inspiration from the Crass Collective and
their Bullshit Detector compilation series
(1981-1984). Bullshit detector was a portmanteau of underground activity which
although comprised of crudely recorded
demos by previously anonymous bands,
nevertheless provided an important vinyl
snapshot of participatory activity, which
is also the aim of our DVD compilation.
In this sense, the Imperfect Cinema films
themselves can be seen as not only aesthetic objects – but moreover can be used
as a record of tactile participation. Highlighting this connectivity, Duncan Reekie,
the co-founder of Exploding Cinema, was

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our first guest speaker, sharing his knowledge, films and research, and creating the
potential for new networks and future activity within underground circuits.

30

Future Imperfect: The (Re) appropriation of the sensible
When considering issues of sustainability
in contemporary film culture, how might
the adoption of a trans-disciplinary approach to the theorization of practice help
address this real world problem? More
specifically can a dialectic convergence
between DiY Punk and a popular radical
film practice provide a venue for this discussion of this issue? Both DiY punk and
Film practice rely upon the vehicular aspect of media technologies to facilitate the
description and dissemination of ‘information.’ Just as punk was empowered by the
re-appropriation of amateur and juvenile
technologies (to describe and disseminate its dissatisfaction with the alienating
production values and self-absorption of
mainstream rock music), might a popular
radical film practice find similar means to
express dissatisfaction with similarly alienating aspects of mainstream film culture outlined earlier in this article?
When considering the trajectory of the
imperfect cinema project we aimed to
address key ‘real world problems’ existent in mainstream film culture, by visiting distinct areas in sequentially themed
micro cinema events and to empower
our collective with new and democratic means of understanding, interacting
with and commenting on these issues.
As Stacy Thompson suggests in his essay ‘Punk Cinema’ (2005: 21) ‘punk textuality cuts across many different cultural
forms, including music, style, the printed
word and cinema’ (Thompson 2004: 3),
although he actually only considers a

film to be ‘punk’ when encompassing an
‘ethical aesthetic.’ This, it could be argued, is an acknowledgement not only
of the bricolage, reflexivity and risk which
characterise punks mediated audio-visual
aesthetic, but also of its resourcefulness
in forging new context. In their 2009 paper ‘Obsolescence: Uncovering Values in
Technology Use’ Jina Huh, Mark S. Ackerman describe the unsustainability of a
technology industry which is increasingly
reliant upon ‘planned obsolescence.’ Indeed during the course of their discussion they make direct reference to a trend
which is termed the ‘disposable technology paradigm’ which ascribes concern to
contemporary patterns of technology use,
where usage lifespan is much shorter than
functional lifespan. As Huh and Ackerman
point out, a technology industry which is
then built upon planned obsolescence is
by nature then unsustainable. In fact one
might go as far as suggesting that it relies on unsustainability. When considering
the ‘global problem’ that this ecologically
unsustainable pattern of usage presents,
how might one directly address this issue in a film practice? Indeed, as Huh &
Ackerman suggest, could the notion that
obsolescent technology is worthless be
challenged by harnessing its potential
for comment on the very real ecological
problem which the disposable technology
paradigm presents? Could the audio- visual aesthetics of economically ‘redundant’
technologies be re-contextualised as having transgressive potential, by harnessing
their associations with juvenility, amateurism and nostalgia? Just as the reactionary (de-) evolution of a set of ‘professionalised’ production values resulted in
the extreme low-fidelity aural aesthetic of
the Norweigian Black Metal underground,
could a similarly positioned audio-visual

Filmmakers Journal

production value system re- arrange the
industrialized / professionalized social order by using the detritus of the disposable
technology paradigm?
Stacy Thompson (2004) suggests that:
‘(W)hen punk passes into film, it demands
of film that it offer up material traces of its
production, that it open itself up to its audience as an “open” text by pointing out
how it came to be.’ From this perspective could the crude black and white lowfidelity images of a Fisher Price Pixelvision
toy video camera, or the horizontal jitter
and focal imprecision of super-8 cameras
actually provide thematically potent apparatus for the audio-visual detournement
of the high definition digital technologies
which represent the current techno-philic
pinnacle of the industrialized tele-visual
experience?
The second themed Imperfect Cinema
event on (‘Imperfect Cinema 2’ April 1st
2011) will explore the possibilities offered
by both ‘redundant’ and lo-fidelity technologies in developing a re-contextualised
audio visual aesthetic which is not only
necessarily vehicular, but which also can
be understood as a political comment on
issues of sustainability and hierarchical inequality within contemporary film culture.
In this respect the imperfection deemed
‘inferior’ by contemporary image-making
industries can be harnessed to new and
exciting political potential.
Imperfect Cinema seeks to utilize the
methodological devices and techniques
of DiY Punk and employ where possible
easily understood cultural references as
a tool to describe, position, interrogate
and socialize key issues of concern existent within contemporary film culture and
to popularize amongst our collective the
notion of dialogue and synthesis between
these. In considering how this fundamen-

Imperfect Cinema posters

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Imperfect Cinema screen grabs

tal aspect of our project, might be underlined, we have decided to lay the theoretical foundation of Imperfect Cinema 2 by
exploring and discussing various qualities
of a similarly positioned and equally politicized low fidelity aural aesthetic so that
new synergetic insights might be drawn
from the confluence of the two. To this
end Imperfect Cinema 2 will launched
with a live discussion between renowned
sonic artist and multi-instrumentalist Nicholas Bullen and ourselves, which will
be centred around his development of an
extreme genre of hardcore punk music
known as grindcore. This format will not
only enable the underlining of the transdisciplinary nature of this project, but will
also again serve to democratise this primary research by activating it with all attendees able to contribute and form open

32

dialogues between the stage and the floor.
We hope that this article has served
to briefly outline various ways that micro
cinema, participation DiY punk has both
informed and enabled the Imperfect Cinema project. We chose to focus around
selected areas which have been central
to the development of the project, and to
illustrate how the convergence and dialogues between DiY Punk and a Radical
Film Practice has enabled & empowered
our research to dialectically address the
problems of exclusivity and sustainability
existent in mainstream film culture.

If you would like to submit a film for
Imperfect Cinema, come to one of our
events or get involved please visit our
webpage at www.imperfectcinema.com

Filmmakers Journal

EXPLODING CINEMA
An interview with Duncan Reekie
Daniel Fawcett

The biggest obstacle for
the independent filmmaker was once raising the
money to make a film but
times have most certainly
changed, there is more access to filmmaking tools
than ever before and the
costs are minimal; anyone
with the will can get their
hands on a camera and
editing software and make
a film. This is proven and
the evidence is there in that
more independent films are
being made now than ever
before. But in this time of
the democratising of the
medium a new challenge
has emerged and that is
getting your film seen by
an audience. The internet
is the obvious platform and
goes hand in hand with the
developments that have
allowed us to make films
without money but I believe
that there is still a need for
live film screenings. Whilst
the feedback and comment
functions on the internet are
invaluable tools for filmmakers, they could hardly eliminate the need for public

Dunkan Reekie

screenings in the same way
that digital developments
in production have created
accessibility to filmmaking.
So what are the options
for public screenings for
the independent filmmaker? Most cinemas, even
the so-called independ-

ent ones, will not even
look at your film unless it
is being represented by a
distributor. Festivals are,
of course, a great place
to start but most charge
large submission fees and
from talking to people in
the know I have found that

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some often don’t watch
films fully unless they have
some motivation to. So
that leaves us with two
other options. One is to
organise your own screenings, but this of course
can cost a lot of money if
you are to do more than
one or two. The other is
to submit to an independent screening event but
then you are faced with
the fact that even though
your film is more likely to
be watched it still may not
be selected because of
the tastes of the curator
of the event. So imagine
a screening event where
if you submit your film it is
guaranteed to be shown,
such an event exists, it is
called Exploding Cinema.
The following interview
is with Duncen Reekie
who is one of the founding members of Exploding
Cinema collective which is
now in its 20th year.

Q

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What is Exploding
Cinema?
Exploding cinema is the
name of a collective of
filmmakers and film impresarios, but it’s also the
name of a regular open
access screening of short
films, experimental films,
underground films, no
budget, DIY, documentaries, drama, anything we
are given. Essentially what

we do is show every film
that is given to us in the order that it is given to us. We
try and be as open access,
non-profit and democratic
as possible. So anyone
can join the collective,
anyone can get involved
in running the events, anyone can show a film. All
the equipment is common
ownership. We rotate all
jobs and tasks within the
collective so everybody
gets a chance to do whatever they want. It’s just ridiculously democratic.

Q

How did the collective come about?
The impetus originally for
the founding of the group
was at that time in 1991
at the end of the 80’s [...] it

was very very difficult to get
a screening for your film,
there were very few places
that were showing short
films and the places that
were showing short film
were very heavily curated,
and the curation depended
on a lot of institutional factors, the scene was essentially controlled by various
funding agencies and institutions like the Arts Council
and the BFI.

Q

So they would only
show films they funded?
Yes, once they funded your
film it was in there interest
then that your film should
be distributed, it should
have screenings, it should
go to festivals, and then
you would be selected

Filmmakers Journal

Exploding Cinema event

for various things, so you
kind of got into the system. If you didn’t get in
at the funding stage then
you were fucked. There
was nowhere to show, you
would have to organise
your own screenings.

Q

What about the London Film-makers Co-op?
The Film-makers Co-op
at that point which was
the major nexus of experimental film in London, or
in Britain [...] was kind of
locked in to this faction of
various groups that were
trying to control it. Partially
because it was the only
career route, I mean experimental filmmaking as a
career is a non-starter really, there is no career.

Because what had happened was, in my opinion
anyway, at that point, the
monopoly of the state institutions had removed all
kind of objective critical
discussion because there
were too many vested interests, you know, if somebody was lorded as some
kind of an eminent and
successful filmmaker and
they had been funded ten
times or something like this
and then you went to the
screening and you were
like, this is fucking rubbish,
there was no way that you
could say that, [...] and the
reply was,[...] these films
are difficult films, they are
meant to be difficult films
and if you don’t like them
then it’s simply because

you are not a part of the
culture, or you don’t have
the academic training, or
you are misunderstanding the radical objective of
these films because they
are actually meant to be tedious. I was personally like,
fuck them, let them come
and show their films at a
pub with a room full of real
people and let’s see how
they go down - so it was to
create a critical forum.

Q

Can you describe
what an exploding cinema
event would have been
like at the beginning?
Well the first shows at that
point were in the work’s
canteen and were mostly
films by the collective and
by friends of the collec-

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36

tive, and one of the things
that started to happen
was that we were showing our films and we didn’t
have enough, so we were
forced to make films within
a fortnight and this kind
of changed the nature of
what we were showing. […]
We started off by showing these films that we’d
worked on for years which
were like our precious little
gems, very polished and
then we started having to
go in to this manic production every fortnight, having
to produce new stuff and
this changed the nature of
what we were doing and
then the whole became a
lot more alive at that point,
so we would have either
live music playing, people
playing instruments, and
then from that we had people doing live voice-overs.
So the original screenings were very kind of incestuous I guess because
it was mostly films from
people in the collective or
friends of the collective.
Then very quickly more
people started to come because they heard about it
and that it was such a great
night. Another thing we
discovered quite early on
was that if you had a kind
of convivial atmosphere
where people are talking
and eating and drinking
and even leaving and com-

ing back then you could
show twenty films and they
didn’t have to watch the
films that they weren’t interested in, you got a much
better convivial atmosphere, it was a better night
out, people really enjoyed
it, and that became a part
of our philosophy as well.
So you could show twenty
films and if somebody only
liked three films that was
fine, they may be the best
three films that they have
seen in their life but there
is still another fifteen that
they didn’t watch properly
because they weren’t interested but that’s alright.

Q

One of the things that
seems important to Exploding Cinema is that
the filmmakers are able
to present their films to
an audience without being censored and the audience can judge them
for themselves. But last
night there weren’t any of
the filmmakers there and
I also felt that the films
shown wouldn’t have
benefited by having the
filmmaker there as there
wasn’t really much to say
about them - they weren’t
really what I would call
“underground” or “experimental” films. They
were mostly like the kind
of films that you would
see on YouTube - peoples

first attempts at filming
something.
I wonder
how you feel about this
when the films are of
poor quality, do you see
it as just one of the risk
you take?
Well, yeah, I think it is. It’s
just a risk you take that if
you have an open screening like that then you may
get no experimental work
whatsoever, you may get
no
underground
work
whatsoever or you may get
a whole program of technically sound student work.
There’s nothing you can
do about that really, last
night I think there wasn’t
really any outstanding underground or experimental
work there, I don’t think,
but that’s not always true
at another show you may
have predominately experimental work.

Q

Do you think maybe
the ultimate open access screening would
be if somehow you
could make your screenings free? How do you
feel about the idea that
someone might come
along and pay £5 and not
like any of the films?
Well, we have done free
shows in the past but I am
for paying because it is to
do with the model as well.
It’s to do with the fact that
you’re saying well you can

Filmmakers Journal

make money, you don’t
need funding, you can
make money but as long as
you’re ploughing it back in
to the organisation. I mean
if it’s free then how are you
going to hire the hall.

Q I am just thinking that
maybe that would be taking the whole thing to the
full extreme, maybe there
was a time when at the
start of Exploding Cinema when people would
have been objectionable
to the idea that you could
make this thing for limited money, now I think
it is possible to do things
for no money and people
may think it extreme to
operate without any relationship to money, to me
it seems like the natural
next step for it to go...
I’m wary of that, I am wary
of the free thing because...
I’ll tell you why, the radical film culture of the 70’s
and 80’s, the experimental
filmmakers then and the
independent
filmmakers
then, part of their radicalism or so called radicalism was that they had this
kind of simplistic conflation
of capitalism and trade,
they were like capitalism
is wrong therefore trade is
wrong, therefore making
money is wrong because
its capitalism. It’s a very
naive and silly conflation

Exploding cinema poster

and people would say to
us that you’re a radical
utopian organisation, why
are you charging people
money? But its bullshit,
because what it did was,
that attitude, that conflation, put them in the hands
of the funders because you
need money to run this, so
how are you going to run it
if you’re not going to make
people pay? All right, so
how are you going to do it?
Well maybe we’ll get some

money from the Arts Council and you sold your soul
to the Arts Council. And
we were like; we were not
making that mistake so I
would be against that.

Q

You’ve mentioned
that you are anti-funding, could you explain
more what you mean by
that and why?
The reasons come initially in the foundations
of Exploding Cinema.

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Exploding cinema poster

38

The reasons were very
practical and came out
of the experience of the
collective which was that
myself and my friends realised by talking to other
filmmakers that a lot of
filmmakers were spending their time applying for
funding, that had become
their major aesthetic activity. Applying for funding, filling out funding
forms, doing treatments
for funding forms it had

become almost like a replacement for the filmmaking process and so
with that insight you start
thinking and looking at
the whole funding thing.
[...] At a fundamental level
my problem with funding
is about the very nature
of culture [...], who makes
culture? Is culture going
to be made by training
experts? Is that what itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
about? Is that what you
believe, do you believe

that culture is in some
way like the health system that you need to train
experts and these experts
will then go in to some
kind of elite professional
industry, and that industry
will then provide culture
for the people? Or do you
believe that culture should
be made by people? By
themselves for themselves and that culture
should come from their
experience and come out
of their access to technology and their own sort of
environments? So it depends on what model you
believe in.
When you have funding what happens is that
the funders want you to
behave like a proper organisation. They want
staff and then within staff
they want hierarchy, they
want a manager and they
want an accountant and
they bring in all that shit
and youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got to have a
board of directors. And it
costs money as well, to do
all that, so they give you
money but then you find
you need more money to
conform to their idea of
what an organisation is.
Same with the filmmaking,
they may give you money
to make a film but then
you have to pay everybody union rates and you
have to abide by all the

Filmmakers Journal

laws and structures and
that costs more money so
they’ve given you money
to do the things that they
want you to do. And the
other thing about funding
of course is that its compromise. There’s corporate funding sure, you look
at the Tate’s funding; BP,
Hanjin Shipping you know,
various other criminal organisations as far as I’m
concerned. And then just
state funding in itself, this
state as you know is still
involved in illegal occupations of various nations.

Q

I think that when it
comes down to it there
is very little funding that
is available that would
come without compromise. If someone was to
say “here’s some funding, do what you want”,
end of story, would that
be OK?
The thing is even if a
funder comes to you and
they say there are no
strings attached to this
whatsoever, we are going
to give you some money
and you can do whatever
you like, well that is impossible, because there
is always one string and
that string is that they
get to say they funded
you. They get to say they
funded you. They say we
are a successful fund-

Exploding cinema poster

ing organisation and we
are necessary because
we funded these people.
They have a reason to exist, you are giving them a
reason to exist which is
the worst compromise of
all because who are they
these people? They are
the experts? In what?

Q

So that would be reinforcing the very thing
that you are opposed to?
Yes, Exactly

Q

What’s next for exploding cinema?
We have our birthday
coming up in October. It
will be the 20th birthday
of Exploding Cinema so
we plan to do some huge
extravaganza! A big Halloween show and I am trying to get together a book
just on the Exploding Cinema and related groups
from the 90’s so hopefully that will be published
around then as well.

39

One+One

Revolutions in Progress:
A Film Challenge
The One+One team

“A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at,
for it leaves out the one country at which
Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and seeing
a better country, sets sail. Progress is the
realisation of Utopias”
Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism

40

The term utopia was developed by Sir
Thomas More, a play on words between
“no-place” and “good-place”. It captures
the eternal nature of ideas that can emerge
again and again throughout history and
which are never reducible to human particularities, nor to reality as it is. Dreams
of the good always exceed their historical
placing. Thus they demand critical and dynamic thought, never a simple acceptance
of the status quo or any idea of an end of
history. Utopia may never be reached, but
this is what gives it its revolutionary potential. It is always a critical impulse. The utopian idea appears as an imperative whose
demands again and again call us to action.
Since the dawn of man utopian ideas and
revolutionary action has punctured human
existence, albeit intermitted with reactionary and conservative breaks where utopian
dreams would appear to fade for all eternity. Yet these intermissions have almost
always been short lived. Badiou, for example, describes how the revolutionary period

from the French Revolution and the Paris
Commune [1792 to 1871] and the period
between the Bolshevik revolution and the
radical politics of the 60s and 70s [1917 to
1976] was intermitted with a 40 year period
of reappraisal where revolutionary politics
appeared to come to an end1. In this period, a vanguard group of artists and intellectuals had to experiment, address issues
brought up by the failings of the previous
revolutionary period and prepare for the
next one. Within the intermissions between
revolutionary periods we find not only the
reactionary backlash, but also intellectuals,
artists and activists rethinking ideas, reformulating and preparing the way for the
next period. History is never-ending.
Today we find ourselves in another
such intermission, Capitalism, with all its
gross inequalities, is here to stay, or so we
are told by figures of nearly every political
camp. Even a huge financial crisis can’t
stop the forward march of the neo-liberal
agenda. Yet something else hangs in the
air. A revolutionary fire is beginning to burn
in the people’s hearts. In North America
and Europe drastic austerity measures are
introducing a new generation to revolution,
the Arab world, likewise, is witnessing incredible revolutionary upheaval aimed at
ending tyranny and South America has
been experimenting with populist socialist movements driving towards a different

Filmmakers Journal

economic model. Meanwhile, intellectuals it is, is okay. We must face the unpleasant
and writers as diverse as Badiou, Žižek, facts, problems and dilemmas left to us by
Negri, the invisible committee and Har- the previous epoch, without resigning ourvey have been inventing innovative paths selves to the world as it is with all its horrific
beyond meagre reformism, while inspir- injustice and inequality. This is the difficult
ing a whole new generation. Technology task that any inventor/experimenter of culis equally causing the word “revolution” ture faces today.
We call for thinkers, activists, artists, filmto resurface. Just as the radical spirit of
the 60s was occasioned by the birth of the makers and people more generally to share
TV and Popular media, so, the world asks, with us their visions through the medium of
what will be the effect of the internet, so- film. We want you to help us envisage a culcial media and the digital camcorder? Yet ture for the future and a way of resisting and
for many of us what remains
lacking is not the revolutionary
vigour, but an idea. We know
the utopian idea appears as an imthere is a need for change,
perative whose demands again and
we just don’t know how to
think about it. Without an idea, again call us to action
each revolutionary cry is easily
subsumed into the neo-conservative demand for (capitalist) freedom struggling against current modes of dominaand (parliamentary) democracy, and the tion. Thus for One+One, revolution not only
cries for genuine emancipatory justice go means political and social upheaval, but the
unheard. It is hard not to miss the chasm clavering out of a new revolutionary culture
that opens up between mere change and in terms of form, process, style and content.
a genuine revolution. One changes the Cinema has constantly been drawn into
world, but leaves the core problematic the revolutions and experienced its own internal
same, the other addresses the problem- revolution. For some cinema has served as
atic at its core and pushes it towards a a tool to comment, educate and transform
genuine resolution. Or as Žižek wrote on the world, whereas others have revolutionthe recent events in Egypt:
ised cinema itself, developing methods,
“After Mubarak sent the army against styles and approaches which change the
the protesters, the choice became clear: ei- whole course of cinema or developing ways
ther a cosmetic change in which something to make cinema more accessible, demochanges so that everything stays the same, cratic and participatory. Cinema and social
or a true break.”2
change have constantly intertwined.
Only by grasping the idea and not
If we are to succeed we must not only
have a revolution, but genuine revolution merely the form of revolution can we hope
grounded in a genuine idea. A revolution to affect a genuine change. When Godard
without ideas is mere mindless violence, made his film ‘Sympathy For the Devil’ (or
an order which replaces itself with another as he would have preferred it called: One
order. Yet we must not simply sore off into plus One) he was largely in the sway of
flights of fantasy that a genuine revolution such a cultural upheaval and re-evaluation.
is around the corner, or that the system as The film was a revolution in process as

“

”

41

One+One

much as it was in content. The film layered
imagery, music and quoted text to capture
the sense of a revolution in progress: a
never ending revolution whose results will
always remain undecided.
With these questions in mind, One+One
is setting a challenge to its readers. We
have teamed up with the London Underground Film Festival and are inviting you
to submit your own short films which deal
with the theme “Revolutions in Progress”.
This theme can be interpreted in any way
you wish, but there are just a few rules:
• The film is to be both a mix of drama
and documentary – in homage to the
great “revolution” film Sympathy for the
Devil / One plus One.

The London Underground Film Festival and
One+One will pick their favourite 8 films to
be shown at the Festival in December, and
One+One will put these films onto their
own YouTube channel and website.
To get you thinking about the kind of film
you can make, we ask you to consider a
world/worlds that could be, or that you
would like to see. You could criticise the
world as it is. You could look at possibilities
for revolution, highlight a revolution taking
place, that has taken place, or you would
like to see take place. You can question
the very concept of revolution itself.
The deadline is November 1st 2011.

• At least 50% of the movies dialogue/
voice over (if any) must be quoted from
somewhere else.
• Copyrighted music can be used, yet
filmmakers risk having their videos removed from YouTube.
• Maximum of 10 minutes
• The films need to be uploaded to
YouTube and be titled “One+One Revolutions in Progress: YOUR FILM TITLE”
and the link sent to One+One Filmmakers Journal, preferably by email
submissions@filmmakersjournal.co.uk

To accompany Bradley Tuck’s vision of an “alternative Mary Poppins” in his article,
we asked designers to submit a Mary Poppins One+One cover image in the style
of a communist poster. We had a very high standard of responses. Four in particular stood out. Thank you to all the illustrators who got involved.

Luke Dacey l_dacey@hotmail.co.uk

Caz Church www.cazish.blogspot.com

Ester Sands www.estersands.tumblr.com

Suki Rai sukirai.tumblr.com

43

One+One is a self-published independent journal with a team of writers who are active
participants in a non-profit, non-commercial venture. We are self-funded and write for
the love of our subject rather than for personal financial gain.
We encourage a wide variety of articles whether autobiographical, journalistic, historical, philosophical, socio-political or whether they are manifestos or interviews. However the perspective of the filmmaker or the critical re-invention of film, as a theme, is
of central importance. All articles should cover at least one of the topics listed below.
• Critical examinations of filmmaking; its craft, process or social context. This may concern
either independent self-financed filmmaking or the film industry and film-funding.
• Social issues in films.
• Film as part of a “Revolutions in Progress”
• Underrated or under-acknowledged filmmakers or acknowledged filmmakers who
have radically and experimentally broken boundaries in some way.
We are looking for proposals, from writers, filmmakers and theorists who are interested
in breaking new ground, in unique discussions and challenges.
The word count is negotiable but we usually look for articles under 3000 words.
A 300-word proposal should be sent before an essay idea is finalised.
Send proposals to submissions@filmmakersjournal.co.uk. Further information on
submissions can be viewed at http://filmmakersjournal.co.uk/submissions.php and
the journal can be viewed on our website http://filmmakersjournal.co.uk.